Queen of this Backwater Moon
by Star Charter
Summary: After crash landing on a derelict moon in pursuit of their latest bountyhead, members of the reunited Bebop crew find themselves entangled in a perilous tug of war between a powerful corporation and a woman determined to protect her father's legacy. Their routine bounty hunt has turned unexpectedly deadly—and in Jet's case, into an unexpected affair of the heart. Jet/OC, Spike/Faye
1. Chapter 1: Home Again

Warnings: None

* * *

Queen of this Backwater Moon

Chapter 01:

"Home Again"

* * *

A study in contrast, their reunion came as gradually as their parting had come swift.

Faye found Ed, though to hear Faye tell it, the finding happened the other way 'round. In truth, Faye got lonely, but of course she'd never admit as much aloud. It turns out home isn't the place where you're born. It's somewhere else, somewhere alongside people who give a damn—not in the shadows of unfeeling ruins in a familiar clime. Faye tracked Ed down, and Ed allowed Faye-Faye to stay with her and the Data Dog on an ever-changing, pockmarked earth.

Ein cuddled with them both—but mostly with Ed. Some things never change.

Most things, really.

Which meant it came as no surprise when the Radical Edward found herself wishing for the steady presence of one Jet Black… especially when Faye-Faye forgot her manners and threatened to kick both her and Ein out of their shared tent for the oh-so-minor sin of using the wire of a favorite bra for an antenna. "Ping-ping-ping, helloooo old friend!" went the signal as it danced its merry way amongst the stars, and three weeks later the _Bebop_ skimmed the waters of the malleable earth with a spray of diamond foam.

Jet had missed the girls—and the damn dog, though like Faye, he'd ever admit it out loud.

Same way not a single one of them talked about the other stray dog who still hadn't wandered home.

Jet tried not to think about that stray dog too much. Tried not to dwell on where the dog had gone, the haunted look in this eyes as he went to face his final demons, that stance that said the roaming dog didn't intend to return home once he'd done what he needed to do. Traces of that dog haunted the _Bebop_. A cigarette butt here, a dirty shirt left draped over the back of a chair there. Jet's gaze slid over them as if they did not exist, though developing such dispassion took care and time.

Faye eyed them when she passed, too, and she said nothing. But she stared out the windows and into the black as though to read the dog's face in the stars, to trace his features in the ghostly remnants of a vanished specter, unmentionable and untouchable. When Ed reached for his things, tried to build a little shrine to the stray dog's memory, Faye snarled at her to leave those memories alone.

Ed shrank back, eyes downcast, but she obeyed—and soon her eyes skipped over the abandoned possessions, too.

Which is why it made sense that not a single one of them believed it when the _Swordfish II_ appeared, patched and limping, just beyond the edge of the starboard wing.

Chipped red paint, engine hanging by a thread, the ship sputtered across the dark horizon like a shred of long forgotten dream. Ed watched it from cockpit with a gasp and an "oh" of awe. Beside her, Jet's mouth dropped open. Faye hid her trembling lips behind a hand. Ein's fur stood up, and then he barked once, twice, three times. The spell broke as one dog greeted the other, and at Ed's burble of glee there came a sputter of static over the ship's communicator.

"Hey, stranger," came Spike's voice, hoarse and strained but real. "Room for one more?"

Jet's jaw clicked shut. His eyes watered, and his fists clenched at his sides.

Tears beaded in Faye's eyes, too, but she banished them with snarl and a hurled insult.

Ed whooped with joy, and when no one was looking, Ein pressed the button that opened the Bebop's hangar.

Just like that, the stray dog had come home—and the _Bebop_ truly became their home once more.

* * *

 _Notes:_

 _Little side project I'm going to be working on in my spare time. There's not enough Jet/OC in this world; hopefully this can balance the scales. Next chapter we start in media res with the bounty they get after. Wanted this first chapter to cover how they all found each other again to ground us in the story's timeline. Stay tuned for more, and thanks!_


	2. Chapter 2: Nothing Good

Warnings: None

* * *

Queen of this Backwater Moon

Chapter 02:

"Bad Idea"

* * *

As bullets ricocheted off the rocks above Jet's head, he finally remembered why it was a bad idea to listen to Spike.

Not that he'd forgotten Spike's penchant for following bad leads and running headlong into frays without plans, per se. Jet might've been the _Bebop's_ resident old man, but no matter what Faye might say, he hadn't gone senile just yet. It's just that they'd spent time apart, and Spike had come back different. Quieter, with sharper eyes and less desire to speak, following Jet's order when tracking bounties without complaint or even snark—and frankly, that alone was creepy enough. Spike, obedient? Say it ain't so.

So when Spike said he had a lead, and when a spark lit behind his mismatched eyes for the first time in months, Jet didn't have the heart to ask questions. Jet steered the _Bebop_ toward a remote moon off Jupiter in the pursuit of a small-fry tech thief named Killian Marco. Sucker had a decent bounty on his head, but nothing so big they could expect serious competition. Perfect for putting Spike back in the game, Jet thought. Local source said Marco had been spotted in the area, probably on the way back to his home on this terraformed asteroid-turned-moon called Marius CT-174—a backwater hole-in-the-wall not even listed on tourist maps.

Which is why Jet had been more than a little surprised to find an entire battalion of cruisers hovering just above the moon's thin atmosphere, artillery at the ready—which is also why he hadn't steered the _Bebop_ out of the way of said artillery in time to avoid a hit. The retrofitted fishing vessel had plummeted to the moon below before Faye could even find her voice to scream obscenities at the five ships that broke from the pack and chased them to the moon's dry surface.

Seems Marco was a popular guy, after all.

And like Jet said: It was a bad idea to listen to Spike.

But Spike wasn't there just then, now was he? And Jet would do better to focus on the thugs shooting at him rather than on blaming his absent crewmate. Priorities. Jet had them, even if Spike didn't.

Anyway.

Jet crouched behind an outcropping of stone at the foot of a tall rock formation shaped (for lack of better comparison) like a hand reaching right out of the cracked desert, tall columns of stone stretching fingerlike toward the lilac sky and yellow clouds roiling high above the terraformed earth. Faye would probably mock Jet for talking flowery, but the only other things he could think to compare the big rock to were those big sandstone mesas in you always saw in old westerns and John Wayne movies—yeah, that's right, from Old Earth's Monument Valley in what was it, Arizona? Arkansas? He never could keep the United States straight, anyway, and Faye already made enough fun of him for being an old man without knowing he liked classic cinema. With the finger comparison he'd stick.

Another bullet ricocheted off the stone; Jet fired back blind, robotic arm barely even feeling the recoil. Jet pressed his organic fingers to the earpiece he'd managed to snag before fleeing the burning _Bebop_. "Anybody out there?" he asked.

In his ear, the radio crackled with static.

Where Faye and Spike and Ed and Ein had gotten off to when they fled the smoking wreck of his ship, Jet hadn't a fucking clue.

Cursing, he chanced a glance over the top of his rocky hideaway. Dozens of the mesas dotted the parched earth in all directions, masses of stone dark against pale dirt, and they all looked pretty much the same: completely useless. A column of smoke drifted from behind one mesa maybe five hundred feet away, black and oily and thick. The _Bebop_ , obviously. Shot down and burning. No signs of life or civilization in any direction (and that tracked with the brief view of this barren desert moon he'd gotten as they crashed), aside from the two gun-toting morons he'd spotted crouched some yards off behind another bit of bulbous rock. Just two, with a cruiser parked a ways behind them on the desert floor. Which meant there were three other cruisers in the area, as unaccounted for as the rest of the _Bebop_ crew.

If he could commandeer that ship, blend in with the enemy, get a jump on them when they were unawares, then go find his friends—

Jet raised his hands into the air, Walther P99 dangling by the trigger guard from one metal fingertip.

"Now, now, fellas," he called during a lull in the gunfire. Tone jovial, casual, nonchalant, he said: "Why don't we cool our heads a minute, see if we can work this out?"

The gunfire stopped.

There followed a pause.

Cautiously, Jet peeked over the top of the rock.

The thugs spotted him, yelped, and opened fire.

Jet jerked back down again with a grumble. "Guess they're not really the talking sort."

Not that the attempt at a ceasefire hadn't been without some success. He'd gotten another look at the thugs when he peeked over the rock, noting their black body armor and helmets with dark visors—ISSP gear, instantly recognizable to Jet, only it bore no ISSP crests or colors. Gear of police quality, but definitely bought aftermarket. Perhaps even black market. And the cruiser behind them bore a red crest depicting a large drill emblazed with the word "CygmaCorp" in brilliant orange and violet letters. Garish. Hard to forget.

Especially since he'd seen the same logo on the ships that had shot them out of the sky.

Jet had no idea what CygmaCorp might be, on account of never having heard of them. He had no idea what they were doing here or why they'd attacked at first sight. But he filed the name of the organization away for future reference, committing that tacky logo to dutiful, vengeful memory.

Nobody touched the _Bebop_ without Jet's permission. Nobody.

Now, Jet hadn't had time for much before the _Bebop_ went down, but he hadn't been called the Black Dog of the ISSP for nothing. He'd grabbed the bug-out bag hidden under the flight deck of the _Bebop's_ bridge on his way out the door, before he had to scatter away from the others as gunfire arched in their direction. He grabbed a ribbon of instant firecrackers from the bag's depths and pulled the catch, wincing as the explosives let off a series of short, harsh pops that sounded (to any untrained ear, at least) like a gun going off. Low-tech, sure, but if it worked it worked. He set the firecrackers on the ground, ducked low, and crawled away from his hiding spot on hands and thighs, listening as the "firefight" raged on behind him.

Definitely not ISSP, then. Dumbasses couldn't tell the difference between firecrackers and guns.

Leaving the thugs occupied with a phantom enemy, Jet allowed himself a satisfied grin and picked his way around the edges of the gigantic rock formation, sticking close to the shadows at its base as he circled the thing—circled it the long way 'round, hooking back toward the thugs and their own hiding spot. He glanced left and right whenever he got a good vantage point, scanning the horizon and the dozens of other mesas for a shock of bright blue jacket, livid yellow hot pants, or flaming red hair.

He didn't see any of those things.

He saw only a dark wall of cloud to the west, rising black and ominous against the pale purple sky.

Jet paused when he spotted it. The roiling black cloud stretched from the ground to even above the tops of the mesas, enveloping the mesas one by one in its dark mass as it made its steady way toward him across the dry, cracked plains. The yellow clouds in the clear purple sky shuddered and rippled, and when the black wall reached them, they dragged downward like bubbles through a straw and disappeared into the dark cloud below. Above it all loomed the bloated bulk of Jupiter itself, dominating the western sky like the watchful eye of some great and hungry god.

A sandstorm.

Fucking great.

But that was the desert on a probably unstable terraformed planet for you, Jet guessed, not to mention his rotten luck.

"Never should've listened to Spike," Jet muttered, and as if summoned by his words a wind kicked up, hot and biting and full of grit. Jet shielded his eyes with one hand and spat a mouthful of dirt onto the stone below his feet. He'd have to make this quick, find a place to lie low until the storm passed. He just hoped the others saw the storm in time and took cover before it hit.

Continuing around the rock formation took only a few minutes, no more time spared for the ominous wall of dust heading his way. Ears trained on the gunfire still pop-pop-popping right where he'd left it, Jet rounded the entire formation on silent feet until his mental map of the terrain told him he'd gotten close enough to take a shot. Jet sketched a map in his head of where the two thugs with the guns should be and, back pressed tight to rock, peered around a boulder toward their position.

Jet saw movement.

Jet struck.

No time to think, no time to plan; the firecrackers would run dry soon. A black figure moved amidst brown stone and Jet raised his gun, training it on the man in a motion born as much from training as from instinct. He squeezed the trigger in that same glide and pull of practiced muscle, Walther P99 roaring as a round left the chamber and cut the air toward its intended target. The man screamed, lurching to the side, but Jet's sharp eyes noted that he'd only hit the thug's shoulder—not a killing blow. He raised the gun again as the thug stumbled back and headed for the cruiser, sight trained between the man's retreating shoulders.

Something crunched behind Jet's back.

He turned.

Atop a jut of rock crouched the other thug, gun raised.

Jet had time to think only one thing—that the corporate jerks had had the same idea he did, circling around to mount a surprise attack—as he raised his gun and tried to beat his attacker to the gunfire punch, but he knew it wouldn't make a difference. The asshole carried a handgun and the barrel had already been leveled, a leering face behind the weapon promising Jet's death with a single pull of the trigger. Still, Jet tried to raise the Walther, and time seemed to slow as the enemy's arm flexed, muscles contracting one by one, finger bearing down on the trigger millimeter by excruciating millimeter—

Over Jet's shoulder, thunder boomed.

The thug yelped and fell backward in a spray of blood.

Jet didn't move. He stared at the boulder before him, at the top of it where the thug had fallen out of sight, without comprehending.

That thunder—where had it—?

Jet's survival instinct did what his conscious brain could not, and turned his body to face his newest threat.

Of all the things Jet expected to find behind him, she did not rank among the number. Spike coming out of the blue with a well-placed shot, perhaps, or maybe even Faye with a glib comment on her tongue, but certainly not this woman. She balanced atop one of the shortest fingers of the tall mesa, banner of tawny hair tumbling on the wind, one foot propped up on a bit of stone, hands clasped around the gleaming form of a long shotgun—a shotgun trained on Jet, currently, and that probably would have alarmed him had he not noticed just what the hell the woman was wearing. To his horror he beheld a long off-white robe belted at the woman's trim waist, train flapping in the wind, fabric parting over the curve of her bronzed thigh before cascading nearly to her ankles. The robe gaped open nearly to her navel, too, baring a stripe of coppery skin and the side of one breast for all the world to see, and then the scorching wind blew and nearly knocked the robe off one of her broad shoulders—

The woman gasped, clasped the front of her robe, and wrenched it firmly shut.

Best as Jet could figure, he probably should've been politer about ogling, even if he'd been ogling out of a sense of concern. Wearing a goddamn bathrobe in the approaching sandstorm sounded like a monumentally bad idea, in his humble opinion. Still, perhaps he got what was coming to him, staring at her slaw-jawed the way he'd been—because in exchange for staring at her nearly-bare chest, the woman raised the shotgun higher and shot him square in the middle of his own.

Just desserts, Jet supposed, before everything went quite black.

* * *

 _Notes:_

 _And we begin in media res. Thought about a chapter in which they discuss the bounty and get shot down and whatnot, blah blah blah, but felt like too much exposition. Wanted to start with tight focus on Jet. Don't worry, he'll see the rest of the crew eventually (spoiler: Jet ain't dead and neither are they)._

 _We meet the OC proper next chapter, too. It makes me laugh that all Jet had time to notice was her manner of (admittedly odd) dress before she FUCKING SHOT HIM._


	3. Chapter 3: No Way, No How

Warnings: None

* * *

Queen of This Backwater Moon

Chapter 03:

"No Way, No How"

* * *

Spike's spindly legs carried him as fast as they could from the smoldering wreckage of the _Bebop_ , two cruisers bearing down on him from behind and above like buzzards too hungry to play the role of carrion—but his legs didn't carry him nearly fast enough. He could've run a hell of a lot faster if he didn't have a kid tucked under one arm and a dog tucked under the other. That was two bad luck charms in tow, he lamented. No idea where the third bad luck charm—the _Bebop's_ resident woman with attitude—had gotten off to, nor had he seen where Jet had gone, but he was just a bit too busy to care about either of them. Jet and Faye could take care of themselves, and as for Spike?

A barrage of bullets struck the desert at his heels, kicking up sand with metallic zips and pops.

Spike put on another burst of speed with a muttered curse. Nope, no time to worry about the rest of the crew just then. No way, no how.

Even though the crash had set a ringing in his ears and a spin in his head, Spike had enough savvy left in him to run in a zigzag pattern across the desert floor, flowing along the curve of the dunes like water along the base of a carved bowl, fluid and unpredictable. Guys piloting the cruisers on his tail circled overhead, trying to shoot him down, but he dodged and glided and spun and the bullets struck nothing but empty sand and as the cruisers zoomed past with roars of angry engines. To the buzzards circling above it must look like Spike had no destination proper, but in truth he'd spotted a low ridge of rock to the south; he made his indirect way towards it without giving away his intended destination. Spike knew better than to do so, spin in his head regardless. He had a plan. He knew what to do.

The kid under his arm, however?

 _Useless_.

Said kid thrust her arms forward, legs stuck out straight behind them like a flying hero from an old comic book. "Whee!" she squealed, Spike's ears ringing all the louder. "Faster, mister, faster!"

Ein, snug beneath Spike's other arm, barked once.

"Edward is a birdie, cheep cheep cheep!"

Ein barked twice.

"Aw, pipe down, the both of you!" Spike bellowed. Ed flailed, giggling and gleeful, and Spike's steps faltered under her shifting weight. "And stop moving or you'll get us both kille—"

Shots came close, then, sand spattering the back of Spike's jacket hard enough to sting his covered skin. He stumbled, Ed's shrieks turning manic, but Spike regained his feet and pelted all the harder toward the rocky ridge. There would be a crevice under it, probably. A place to take cover, hopefully. Not that he liked placing so many bets on hope and probability, but still. If his luck bore out he'd find a place to hide out and make a plan that didn't involve so much running, one that didn't involve Spike babysitting this brat and this dog and playing chauffer for them both all the way to damn Europa—

Somehow, despite the jagged blur and jounce of running, Spike saw Ein's ears prick up. The mutt's head swung off to their left, and then his stubby legs kicked and his long back bucked against Spike's ribs. Spike wasn't about to argue with his emergency rations. Hell if he cared about the damn dog. If Ein wanted to run off, so be it. He let the dog go and kept running—although he did a double-take when Ein hit the ground at a dead sprint and veered left, sure as shit heading straight to the southeast.

"What the—? And just where the hell do you think you're going?" Spike called after him.

"After him, Spikey, after our Einy-boy!" came Ed's very helpful suggestion, accompanied by a feat of acrobatics that resulted in a foot pressing to the back of Spike's head.

Ein barked once over his shoulder.

"You gotta be kidding me!" Spike said.

A toe lodged itself in Spike's ear. "Edward might be a kid, but Edward never kids!"

"Errrrggh—fine, but you owe me big time!" Spike adjusted course. "You get back here right now you mangy little—!"

He swung to his left and followed the dog's prints across the sand, still heading for the rock ridge only now at an angle that would take much longer to reach, meaning they would be exposed for longer, meaning _why had Spike listened to the damn dog and the damn kid instead of his own damn self?!_ With a bellow of rage and exertion he maintained his flowing zigzag, narrowly avoiding yet another spray of bullets just as Ein reached the ridge ahead of them. The dog took a flying leap over the rocks, squat legs extended comically ahead of his long body as he fell from sight—

Just as he disappeared, Spike saw movement beyond the ridgeline. Five shapes, five shapes that turned to silhouettes rose from behind the rocks and stood, and off of something in their hands sunlight glinted oily and dark.

Guns.

Spike recognized the high caliber rifles in a moment of white-hot recognition. Each of the five men gripped guns, enormous guns built for long-range combat held at ready, and on instinct alone Spike dug in his heels and skidded to a stop, gut asking the question his conscious brain could not.

 _Was he about to get shot in the fucking face?_

Apparently not. Despite the bad luck charm kicking under his arm, it seemed today was his lucky day.

Just as he came to a stop, one of the men bellowed, "Duck!"

Didn't have to tell Spike twice. He threw down the kid and hit his belly on the sand just as they opened fire, Ed's indignant cry barely audible over the roar and pop of rapid gunfire—and then came twin booms, heat washing over his neck and back in a scorching wave, and he couldn't hear Ed anymore at all. Spike peered up at the lilac sky just in time to see the two cruisers that had been chasing him streak through the sky trailing smoke, flying past through the sky to crash beyond the ridge with two huge plumes of billowing fire. Heat hit his face even at this distance, a gust of acrid smoke filling his mouth with the scent of oil and ash.

He spared only a glance at the downed ships, however, eyeing instead the five men scrambling over the ridge.

They saved him.

But why, and just who the hell were they?

A rapid-fire barrage of facts cycled through his head as the men ran in his direction. As far as he knew, only colonists lived on this barren moon—no military or police to speak of. The asteroid had been terraformed so long ago and by tech so old it didn't even have a terraforming ring around it, forcing said colonists to live right on the asteroid's surface instead on of the comparative comfort of a ring. Sources on the Net had said the moon's only village was a little speck on the map, barely inhabited, and he hadn't spotted it during their descent to the desert floor—but then again, the _Bebop_ had been on fire at the time…

Beside him, Ed sat up with a whoop of joy and turned a backflip with a spray of sand. "Yay! We won! Ed and Spikey won!"

But Spike wasn't so sure about that. "Don't celebrate yet, kid," he grumbled, sneaking a crumpled cigarette from his jacket pocket.

She looked at him with head tilted at an extreme angle, but before she could ask questions their saviors had them surrounded. Spike didn't bother running; had had nowhere to go, and absolutely nowhere to be. He sat up and crossed his legs and stuck his hands in the air with a grunt and a sigh as they shoved the ends of their rifles into his face (and into Ed's, but she didn't seem bothered by it and just rubbed her check against one of the men's leather boots).

Spike waggled the cigarette dangling from his lip and asked, "Anybody got a light?"

The men looked at each other, knocked off balance as Spike had hoped, though why they even bothered exchanging glances Spike wasn't sure. It's not like they could see each other, after all. Each wore scarves over their faces and thick goggles over their eyes. That and the helmets atop their heads providing coverage from sun and sand alike. Desert combat gear, by the look of it, and the five of them moved in tight formation so swift it had to be practiced—but although Spike kept his lids at lazy half-mast, affecting an air of bored detachment, he noticed something off. Their uniform clothes weren't actually uniforms, jackets and coats and scarves and pants and boots culled from different styles of dress, tailored to look similar and yet not quite the same. They carried a variety of firearms with what looked like aftermarket sights and stock adjustments, too, similar but not standard issue.

So: Nothing Syndicate. Too irregular, too homegrown, not sleek enough. And certainly not military or police, in that case. Hell, probably not even mercenary. Local militia? That had to be Spike's bet. But the guns were expensive, the clothing well made. So where—?

He didn't have time to ponder. One of the men tapped the underside of his chin with the barrel of a weapon, tilting up his face until Spike had no choice but to look the man in the—well, not the eye. In the goggle lens, reflective and green and utterly inscrutable.

"You Cygma?" the man asked—only he had a light voice. Too light. A woman, then, but that hardly mattered.

"Am I _what?_ " Spike said.

Ed released a bright laugh, flopping into a backbend. She upside-down-crab-walked to the woman with the gun on her hands and wagged one finger at her, grinning. "No, no, no, we are not _swans_. Silly desert-people, asking if we're _swans._ " Bright blue eyes swung toward Spike. "And she pronounced it wrong, too, Spike-wikey! It's cyg-NAH, not cyn-MAH!"

The woman stepped back, unnerved as Ed flopped onto the ground and began rolling in a circle, now muttering a rhyme about swans. "Er. No. They're definitely not Cygma," she said.

"Stealth agents?" said one of the other desert-people (actually a man, this time).

The suggestion made the woman snort. " _This_ lot?"

Spike thought about being offended. Decided against it. Not worth the effort. He yawned and stretched as Ed performed a handstand, watching with a suppressed smile as Ein popped back up over the nearby ridge and ran over to his best buddy. Ed tossed Ein in the air and rolled with him in the dirt as he barked; the desert people stared, probably slack-jawed behind their scarves. And a good thing, too, Spike thought. The more incompetent Spike and company looked, the less likely these people were to mistake him for Cygma—and no, he hadn't missed the symbols etched into the sides of the cruisers that had tried to gun them down, nor had he missed the tension in the woman's voice when she voiced the word that Ed claimed did not quite mean "swan."

The enemy of Spike's enemy was his friend, as one of Jet's antiquated philosophers would say.

He would stick with these people until it was no longer convenient. Let them do the heavy lifting until it was time to make a move.

"I don't know who Cygma is," he said, and when the woman looked at him he winked (hoping in the back of his mind she wasn't hideous under that getup). "But if they're the people who just tried to kill us, I'll be happy to help take down their next ships." He pointed a lazy finger at her weapon with an even lazier smile. "Just give me one of those fancy guns. I promise I'm a good shot."

"Huh. Fat chance," said one of the men.

"Why did you come here?" said the woman.

"Sightseeing, that's all."

"Likely story." She hefted her rifle higher. "Well, whoever you are, you had best come with us."

He eyed the gun in her hand with exaggerated dispassion. "I'll pass, thanks."

"You'll prefer the guns over _that_ when it hits, I promise."

This time she didn't point a gun at him—she pointed a finger, and she pointed it over his shoulder, and when Spike turned his head he realized at what. On the distant (but not distant enough) horizon loomed a black wall of undulating dust, higher even than the strange rock formations rising up around them. A dust storm. His eyes narrowed at memories of tales he'd been told, tales from the war on Titan of storms that could shred a man's skin in minutes, days when Vicious had had to hide under the bellies of tanks just to keep from—

He shoved the memory away. Made his face look lazy and unconcerned before turning back to the woman in her desert gear.

"You make a good point, stranger," he drawled around his cigarette. "So where we headed?"

"Nowhere." The woman lifted her glove to her mouth, thumb pressed tight to forefinger with a burst of radio static. Embedded transceiver, Spike reckoned. She muttered, " _Todo claro._ "

Spike didn't recognize the words, though he thought maybe they'd been spoken in Spanish, and nothing much happened once she said them. One of the commandos drew out a cord and bound his hands (they tried to do the same to Ed's hands and quickly gave up when she started walking on them) and hauled Spike to his feet, but a minute passed of simply standing there before anything of note transpired. Soon, though, Spike's sharp ears detected the hum of an engine not too far away; he didn't turn to look, however, letting Ed spin on her heel toward the sound first before reacting. No sense letting them know what he was capable of just yet. From the shadow of a rock formation came a land cruiser, long and low to the ground, metal plating painted the same matte hue as the desert sands themselves. Spike didn't recognize the particular model, but he'd seen the like before—and he knew it wasn't military despite the retrofitted all-terrain treads, radio antenna and plasma cannon sitting pretty on top of the enormous beast.

A fortified mobile command center if Spike had ever seen one. These people weren't military, but they sure did a good job pretending they were.

Pity his informant hadn't said a damn word about them—pity for the informant, that is. When Spike was through with him…

The vehicle trundled past them in a cloud of disturbed grit, Spike and Ed and Ein sneezing at the onslaught. The wagon pulled to a stop just past the knot of troopers and captives with a groan of metal and twisted gears. The back end creaked and dropped down into a long gangplank, onto which Spike was shoved. Soon he found himself in a dark cavern of a vehicle, blinking to adjust to the low light and the hum of the idling engine vibrating through his ears and the soles of his feet. A space shaped like the chamber of a bullet, benches lining the sides, racks for guns and cargo above, and up toward the front a door leading to the cockpit—

His eyes stopped not on any of that, however, but rather on the woman sitting to his right on one of the benches. She looked up when he entered, and for just a second her face lit from within with hope—but then her eyes went dark. Her head thumped against the hull of the car. She slumped back into her seat. Bound hands lay limp across her bare knees in the very portrait of defeat.

"Hello to you too, Faye," Spike said. "Fancy meeting you here."

Faye sighed. _Dramatically_.

"Well, now. Why the long face?"

"Oh, it's nothing." She inspected her nails, crossing one leg neatly atop the other. "I'd just hoped the crash had killed you, that's all."

Spike scowled. "I should've known better than to worry over you."

At his side, Ed sniffled. "Faye-faye wanted Ed dead?" she said, voice a warble of barely restrained emotion.

Faye growled, teeth on full display. "Oh, for the love of—not you, kid. _Him!_ "

And like a flipping switch, Ed's tears dried. She leaped into the air and skipped forward, walking with legs akimbo and arms waving like an elated starfish. "Yay! Ed's not dead, Ed's not dead, Ed's not dead!"

Ed cavorted and Ein ran around her in circles, barking. The desert commandos shoved Spike forward toward Faye, pushing him none too gently into the seat at her side. She made a show of scooting away from him with a sneer of revulsion, especially when he waggled his cigarette at her. He knew she kept a spare lighter hidden _somewhere_ in those horrible hotpants of hers, but Faye wasn't in the mood to share, it seemed. She thrust up her nose and harrumphed, turning away with another dramatic sigh.

But Faye wasn't foolin' nobody. "So you _are_ together," said the woman with the rifle as she walked up.

Faye started to protest, but before she could get the words out, the woman tugged off her helmet. The scarf came with it with a rustle of cloth. She had deep umber skin and a scar over the corner of her mouth, features angular and thin, dark hair worn in skinny braids that framed her dark eyes—eyes staring at Spike like she could see straight through him. The leader of the pack, for sure.

"I'm Moriah." She gave a nod to Faye. "We found her not far from your ship. Gave herself up before we even trained a gun on her."

Spike grinned, nudging Faye with an elbow. "Is that so?"

"Hey!" Faye was on her feet in seconds, glaring at the unmoved Moriah. "You could at least do a girl a favor and _pretend_ like I put up a fight!"

"Fight-might-tight-light! Night! Sight!" Ed sang. She gripped one of the luggage racks suspended from the ceiling and pulled herself onto it, dangling upside down from her hooked knees. "Blight! Am I right?"

Ein sat on his haunches and looked up at the kid, head askew. Ed reached for him and giggled, ruffling his enormous ears. Moriah watched without a word, one eyebrow lifted nearly to her hairline. Eventually she turned to Spike and Faye again.

"This everyone on board your ship?" she asked. "You three and the dog?"

Spike and Faye didn't even have to look at each other. "Yes," they lied in unison—because no matter how much they fought, Spike knew he could trust Faye not to give the game away just yet.

They both had realized Jet was still out there.

If Spike and the others had been captured by people they shouldn't have been, Jet would set things straight—because Jet wasn't stupid enough to get himself caught like this. No way, no how.

Not that Moriah believed their lie, smooth though they'd delivered it. She looked them up and down before twisting her lips and tossing her myriad braids. "Hmmph. We'll see about that," she said.

She walked off, then, leaving them in the care of two of the desert commands who likewise removed their helmets, revealing two youngish men who looked utterly average, not worth remembering so far as Spike was concerned. The rest of them, Moriah included, went up front to the cockpit and shut the door behind them, sound of their voices and a ribbon of platinum sunlight leaking through the small square hatch in the middle of the door—and yeah, that was definitely Spanish coming loud and clear from Moriah and the others, unintelligible and muffled. Though even if it had been clear, it's not like Spike could've understood it. His Spanish was only limping on the best of days.

"You see Jet?"

Spike cast his eyes to the side, toward Faye, who'd slouched closer to him even if she hadn't quite turned to face him yet. Pretending she hadn't just asked him that under her breath, then. Mums the word. Spike slouched, too, head hanging low as he watched the two guards from beneath the curtain of his bangs. Luckily Ed chose that moment to turn an admittedly impressive flip as she dismounted from the cargo rack on the ceiling, screaming out a nursery rhyme as she landed and gave a merry bow. The commandos applauded on reflex, charmed into distraction.

OK. So maybe the kid wasn't entirely useless, after all.

Faye, eyes on Ed and the guards, repeated herself. "So have you seen Jet or not?" she hissed from between clenched teeth.

"No."

"Shit." She shook her head. "Well. At least they aren't hostile."

"Not to us, maybe. They shot down two of the cruisers who followed us."

Faye's eyes widened. "But why?"

Spike shrugged. "Guess they don't like having an entire fleet of ships parked off their atmosphere."

"What were those ships even doing there in the first place?"

"Dunno."

"Your informant didn't say a damn word."

"Right."

"This moon was out on the edge of inhabited space, not some sightseeing destination." Faye looked worried, not that Spike blamed her. She abandoned some of the 'play it cool' act when she angled toward him, voice urgent but still pitched low. "What do you think is going on?"

Another shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"I don't like this, Spike."

"Neither do I."

Faye looked at him like she expected him to say more, but she should have known better. Spike tucked his chin to his chest and shut his eyes, only opening them again when the vehicle shuddered as the engines kicked back into gear. A jolt and a sway and the ship moved, treads pulling them across the desert toward… well. Spike had no idea. He closed his eyes again.

Time to go with the flow, he thought.

Faye, though… she had other ideas, as she was so often wont. Spike's eyes snapped opened when he felt her move, saw her march right up to the cockpit door and aim a kick at its metal breadth. The heel of her shoe made the door ring like a struck gong before the two guards dragged her back to her seat, but even over their shouts for her to cooperate and the engine noise and the ringing door, Spike heard her words loud and clear.

"Hey, lady with the gun!" Faye and bellowed. "Just where the hell do you think you're taking us, anyway?!"

The sunlit patch in the door went dark as a face obscured it, but then the face moved and sunlight poured through again. The guards muttered to each other in Spanish, ignoring Faye completely—but Ed frog-hopped over to Faye and raised one hand into the air.

"Oh, oh, Ed knows, Ed knows!" Ed said. "Ed heard them talking."

"Really, Ed?" Faye leaned forward, eager. "You speak Portuguese?"

"They're speaking Spanish," Spike muttered.

A heel dug into Spike's foot. "Shut up!" Faye ignored his indignant yodel completely as she asked, "So what'd they say, Ed? Tell me!"

Another giggle, cheek rubbing against Faye's stocking-clad knee. "Ed heard them talking about the king!" Ed said.

Spike sat up straight. "The what?"

"The king, the king!" Ed said. She rocked backward on her heels, momentum sending her into a backward roll. "They're taking us to the king!"

In unison Spike and Faye repeated, "The _king?!_ "

"OK, that's it." Spike turned his irate glare onto the two guards. "You two. Fess up. She's not serious, is she?"

The guards exchanged a long look. Hesitant. Like they weren't really sure if they were allowed to speak or not, maybe—but before Spike could let loose the growl building in his thin chest, the shaft of light coming through the cockpit door went dark.

"That's right," came Moriah's husky voice. "We're taking you to the king—but before that, we're taking you to _Paradiso_."

More Spanish, though hell if Spike knew what it meant. "Para what now?" he said.

" _Paradiso_ —Paradise, son." He could all but hear the grin in her voice, loud even above the grind and moan of the thrumming engines. "We're taking you three to Paradise."

Faye stared at the door with her mouth open, blinking in owlish confusion as Ed made up a song about Paradise and potatoes. Spike tcched between his teeth and sunk into his seat, one ankle propped on the opposite knee, and closed his eyes.

It was time, he decided, for a nap—because he got the feeling he'd need his rest.

In spite of its pretty name, wherever they were headed couldn't be anywhere good. Not knowing Spike's luck.

No way, no how.

* * *

NOTES

 _Can you tell I like writing women with guns? :P Moriah isn't my main OC but I like populating my secondary characters with women. Gotta keep the genders balanced, not make every single background soldier a dude._

 _Also there will be bits of Spanish in this fic and if I EVER fuck it up, TELL ME and I'll fix it. Any and all feedback appreciated._

 _I read somewhere that Ein will bark once for yes, twice for no in the anime, so keep an eye out for his barks in this fic. I plan on making them count. I tend to imagine him with snark-ass, R2-D2-esque commentary running through his head most of the time…_

 _MANY BOUNDLESS THANKS to this fic's reviewers! I posted the first two chapters at the same time and I'm so grateful to all of you who chimed in with feedback. You're the best and absolutely made my day(s): Luck Kazajian, smith pepper , and a guest (whom I do believe is deamachi-mochi on Tumblr)!_

 _Also yes I have a tumblr and we should be buds. Connect with me at "luckystarchild" dot Tumblr dot com._


	4. Chapter 4: Rock Salt or Shells

Warnings: None

* * *

Queen of This Backwater Moon

Chapter 04:

"Rock Salt or Shells"

* * *

His chest stung like it had been attacked by a pack of angry bees, but when Jet swam from the depths of unconsciousness to blink in the harsh glare of an overhead fluorescent light, he was too surprised to complain—surprised he wasn't dead, mostly, though for a minute he couldn't remember _why_ he felt so shocked to be alive. Thoughts of _Where am I?_ and _Why's that light so damn bright?_ made thinking tough, and made remembering where he was too difficult to fathom. He focused instead on the feeling of a mattress under his back, on the sensation of a sheet ratling over his arms (soft and cool on his bio right, distant and vague on his mechanical left). He tried to move both arms and only succeeded in lifting the right, palm cupping his throbbing forehead as he tried in vain to sit up.

Two strong hands pressed against his shoulders before he could move an inch, gently forcing him back onto the mattress.

He opened his eyes (when had he shut them?) and saw _her_.

"I wouldn't," she murmured. "You're healing."

Jet didn't move.

She stood near his shoulder, the woman, at the side of the long, low bed in the middle of a small room with tile floors and a tiled ceiling, barren and white and austere. Her dusky skin, the dark gold hair curling around her shoulders, it stood out against the featureless room like—metaphors escaped him. Jet's head swam far too much for metaphors, and besides. He was too busy trying to remember where he'd seen her before, and where she might've gotten her throaty accent. He watched from beneath his lids as she reached for his wrist and pressed two long fingers to his pulse, head bowed and eyes focused as she timed his thudding heart. He knew her from somewhere, he thought, but his memory turned to water in his hands. His eyes arrested on _her_ hands, tracing the line of them down to her fingers, to his own wrist, up his arm and to his own torso—

The sheet covering him had slipped when he tried to sit up.

White bandages covered the broad expanse of his chest. Pips of cherry-colored blood dotted the fabric like—metaphors. Jet didn't have the head for metaphors—but even so.

At the sight of the blood, Jet remembered everything.

He couldn't quite keep the offense from his voice when he said, "You _shot_ me."

The woman's eyes flickered from his arm to his face. Those eyes of hers were gray, he noticed—a metallic silver against her bronzed skin, unexpected and cool. Only now they were screwed up in obvious regret, bright above teeth catching on her lower lip. Like a kid caught with their hand in a cookie jar, almost, though she was too old to be a kid. Maybe Spike's age. Maybe a little older.

"I shot you with rock salt and a very wide choke, if it helps," she offered.

"It doesn't," Jet said (but it did, because those details meant she hadn't meant to kill him, and that counted for something on this barren moon). He scanned her again. Couldn't help but smile, and his voice came out sleepy and teasing when he said, "You're wearing clothes this time."

And indeed she was: breeches and a buttoned shirt, simple and plain. A far cry from the bathrobe in which she'd greeted him—but at his observation she merely snorted. She dropped his wrist. "Are you complaining?" she asked.

"Would you be upset if I was?"

She snorted again, but a smile threatened the corner of her mouth. Pretty, Jet thought, with those full lips and lean features of hers, eyes large and bright in her strong face—though any admiration he might've had for her face dulled somewhat at the sight of the shotgun leaning against the wall behind her, well within her arm's reach.

Still loaded with rock salt, he wondered? Or did it contain more lethal shells these days?

She seemed kindly enough, he thought, muggy brain noting that even if she'd shot him, she'd been kind enough to patch him up afterwards. That was nice. She was a nice lady. And she hadn't meant to kill him. But who was she? Was she defending her turf, or what? Not many were supposed to live here. So who…?

His brain felt… fuzzy. Body, leaden. Mouth, desert dry. She probably had him on painkillers. Was she a doctor? He hoped so. Otherwise…

He moved, left arm dragging nearly numb across the table with a metallic scrape, and the sheet slipped off of him entirely. He tried to catch the sheet on reflex. He flopped, trying to grab it with his right, only to land on his side in a heap.

Something crunched.

Jet looked down.

Two parts of the outer shell of his prosthetic limb, the bits just above his forearm and atop his bicep—they had been 'popped,' so to speak. Not broken or ruptured or knocked askew, but neatly popped out of place and moved aside, the way the technician moved them when calibrating the internal mechanisms that connected man to machine, nerves to network, and flesh to filament. Light reflected on the shining innards of Jet's adopted body, and while a look at his own inner workings would normally set his skin to crawling (there was a reason he only rarely visited a technician for a tune-up, though he'd never admit it) it wasn't the glide and pull of mechanical muscle that made his stomach churn.

The wires—the dozen, two dozen, _three dozen_ wires all alight with shimmering electronic radiance snaking over the side of the bed, diving under his arm's metal carapace and into the machinery below, hooking into him like snakes—those were what sent bile into his mouth in an acrid wave, and all at once he became painfully aware even through his hazy state of mind the inert feeling of his arm, his inability to so much as flex his prosthetic fingers.

"I'm sorry," said the woman from behind him. Her voice came close to his ear, her breath so vivid on his skin it was disorienting. "I should have asked first. But I am checking to make sure—"

It didn't matter what she was checking, Jet thought through the fog in his head. He wanted the wires out of himself and he wanted out of wherever here was and he wanted to know where Spike was and no amount of meds in his system could silence the clarity of any of those desires. He reached for the wires invading him with his right hand. "I need to get out of here."

She rounded the bed in seconds, hands on his shoulders, shoving him back down. "No," she said, command as firm as her iron grip (one that Jet, though willful, was too maddeningly weak to resist). "You'll hurt yourself." And her voice softened along with her silver eyes. "And you have nowhere to go, anyway."

"What does that mean?" he said. He gripped the front of her shirt like she was no more than a common thug, and when her eyes widened he lurched toward her with a growl of, "Tell me what that means, dammit!"

She looked at the ceiling and barked, "Mother!"

For a minute Jet thought she might be calling for help, that maybe they weren't alone and she'd yelled for backup when he scared her—but no one came running. Instead one of the many white panels on the wall over her shoulder sparked, lighting up from behind with a burst of static. It was a screen, not a wall at all, and after a minute the static turned brown and grey. Jet thought the static had just changed color, at first, but then from somewhere above his head a speaker kicked on, filling the room with a keening howl—of wind. Wind and dirt and sand ricocheting off of stone.

"The sand here can cut," the woman said. Her hands eased around Jet's, thumbs pressing against his palm until his fingers relaxed. Her voice soothed, a murmur like a lapping tide, like the waves of Ganymede on a calm night, lulling him to sleep as a boy. She lowered his hand to the bed and said, "It's best to lie low until it passes."

The sandstorm, he remembered. He'd seen that storm coming. It had looked huge. Probably was still raging, depending on how long he'd slept. And he'd been shot, so he'd probably slept a long time…

Jet kept his eyes on the screen as she covered him again with the sheet, hiding his splayed-open prosthetic from view, arranging his other arm at his side. Eventually the speakers quieted and soon the screen turned white, concealing itself once more as a generic bit of tiled wall. His heart (when had it started racing?) calmed over the course of moments until he lay stoic and relaxed. The woman walked away, toward a metal tray held aloft on a metal stand. She fiddled with something there, back turned to him—shotgun well within her reach again.

Even in his addled state, Jet knew better than to try to get a jump on her. Best take a minute to regroup, sleepy though he suddenly was. So. Where did he think they…?

"Are we underground?" he said.

For a second he didn't understand why he'd said it, but when the woman looked at him with surprise, he knew he'd spoken true—his subconscious had put it together first, was all. He couldn't hear the storm now that the screen had turned off, which meant they were too deep or behind walls too thick to hear the storm. And since he hadn't seen any buildings when he landed…

"Yes," the woman said. Lines between her brows said she didn't quite appreciate his razor intuition. "We're quite deep."

Jet would've been proud if he didn't feel so tired. So, they were in a hidden facility? Made sense, he supposed. But… "How did you get me down here?" he asked.

She turned back to her metal tray. She spoke her reply over her shoulder, absent and offhand. "I carried you," she said.

Jet's brow raised. "Little thing like you?"

She laughed through her nose, still not turning. "Not _so_ little," she said, though with good humor. One arm raised, flexing, and through her close-fit shirt Jet saw a ripple of lithe muscle. "What is your name?"

The question caught him off guard, though only for a moment. "Not in the habit of giving it out to strange women in bathrobes," he said, turning up his nose.

"Not wearing a bathrobe anymore," she reminded him. One silver eye regarded him over her shoulder. "I'm Reina."

That eye was like a sniper's scope, intense and careful and dispassionate. She watched him closely when she said her name, as if expecting him to react to it—the behavior of a person with a name of importance, or at least a name of notoriety. Typical behavior of bountyheads and wanted crooks, in point of fact, even if Reina didn't seem like a crook at first glance. He'd seen too many like that not to know the look, even with his head like a foggy Ganymede dawn. Jet had to wonder if this Reina had a bounty of her own with nerves on such edge—especially when her hand twitched just the slightest inch toward the shotgun against the wall.

Rock salt or shells? Jet wondered. Rock salt or shells?

But he had never heard Reina's name before, much less seen a bounty out for her pretty head, and he had no intention of giving her call to use that gun again no matter the contents of its chamber.

"Name's Jet," Jet said. "It's nice to meet you."

She held their gaze for a moment or so—and whatever she read in his face seemed to reassure her. She smiled back, full lips curling, eyes crinkling at the corners just so. She curled a lock of hair behind her ear and tipped her face to the ceiling, clearing her throat with a light cough.

"It is nice to meet you, Jet," she said. "Mother?"

Jet frowned—but before he could wonder what she was doing, calling for her mama again, something in the ceiling clicked and whirred. A voice, light and airy, said: _"Si?"_

" _Agua, por favor,"_ Reina said (a Spanish accent, he finally put together). She glanced at Jet. Hesitated. Added: "And initiate English language."

Another click. Then: "Yes, dear."

Jet started to ask what the heck that had been about, but before he could he got an answer—part of one, anyhow. Another of the tiled wall panels, one just to Reina's right and about shoulder height, slid upward, revealing a recessed nook about the size of a computer case. A cup dropped from a slot at the top, and then there came a whirring noise and a small streamer of water dropped into the cup with a thin splash. Jet watched it for a second before swallowing.

"Mother?" he managed.

"An AI. Nothing to worry about." Reina grabbed the cup when it filled and carried it to him, snagging something off the metal tray on her way to Jet's side. Two white pills stood out against the bronze of her palm. "Here. Drink," she said.

He eyed the pills, not to mention the water, with some trepidation—but at her insistence (and at the stinging pain in his chest) he took them and drank the cup. Almost instantly a wave of fatigue swept over him. Powerful drugs, whatever they were. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to…

He yawned.

… what had he been worrying about, again?

"What did you give me?" he muttered, grabbing the sheet and pulling it beneath his chin.

"Painkillers." She grimaced, apology written all over her face—and Jet thought she couldn't be so bad, after all, if she was sorry for whatever it was she'd done. He couldn't remember all that well. "Rock salt stings, so I thought…"

"You _are_ a nice lady," he said.

Another grimace, though afterward she smiled. "Don't give me too much credit. I _did_ shoot you." She frowned and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, then to his cheek. Jet liked the cool feeling of her skin, and the softness of her hair when it fell over his bare shoulder. Like a mother checking on you when you're sick. Or when Alisa brought him soup when he had the flu. As Jet's eyes closed, a contented hum in his throat, Reina fretted, "And I might have given you too much medicine. You are a large man, and I am no doctor."

"Y'know." He blinked sleepily, her face winking in and out of view. Damn, those pills worked fast. "If I didn't know any better, I'd accuse you of trying to take advantage of me."

She stared at him, clearly taken aback... but her mouth quirked.

"Tell me, Jet. Do you always flirt with women who shoot you?" she asked, amused.

"Only the pretty ones." He yawned again. "And only after they put down the gun."

He thought maybe she wouldn't like that, but he was wrong, because she laughed low and throaty and rich, and then a light flicked off. "Wise man," she said, and her hand touched his face again. "There's water on your bedside. Now, rest. I have some things to see to. Mother estimates we'll be here through the night yet."

Rest did sound nice—but Jet's instincts stirred. He opened his eyes.

"Reina," he said.

He had a view of a doorway (had he noticed it before?) from his spot on his bed. Reina stood in it, lit from behind by light the color of wheat. It turned her hair the same color, her face dark and inscrutable, but she paused with her hand on the doorframe at the sound of her name.

"What is this place?" Jet asked.

Reina didn't move. She didn't speak. But through his lidded eyes Jet saw her chest swell and fall with a single deep breath, followed by another that did not release. Then, like a wind through dense trees, her murmur moved through the gloom.

"This place is a secret," Reina told him. "Sleep now, Jet."

He was dreaming before she could shut the door.

* * *

NOTES

 _Write Super Doped-Up Jet was surprisingly fun. He's kind of a goofball when he's caught off guard, and I love him for that. He's such a nice blend of the hardboiled detective mixed with the softer, bonsai-loving Space Dad we know from the shoe, and I look forward to working with him more closely, really honing that mix of goof with honed bite._

 _And Reina is fun. Can't wait for her to show more of her personality. She's sweet, but guarded, and she's going to be a blast._

 _MANY THANKS to Luck Kazajian and deamachi-mochi for their reviews! Absolutely made my day when you commented. I'm loving writing this fic and it means the world that you're along for the ride._


	5. Chapter 5: 1,131

Warnings: None

* * *

Queen of this Backwater Moon

Chapter 05:

"1,131"

* * *

As the door fell shut behind her, Reina murmured, "Jet."

Odd name for a man—the name of a thing, a vehicle instead of a person. Mother made a quirking beep of question at Reina's vocalization, but when Reina didn't continue, the AI fell silent. Reina stood with her back to the door and listened, wondering if her slip of the tongue had roused the man from slumber—but she needn't have worried. She heard no movement from beyond the door.

"I might have overdone it with the painkillers," she murmured.

Mother burbled again. "Based on his approximate age and body mass, the dose I recommended was well within the limits of safety."

Of that assertion, Reina had few doubts. Mother's words, spoken in English, bore no uncertainty whatsoever—but then again, the AI wasn't accustomed to speaking in English. Could she express doubt in this language setting? Reina debated returning the settings to Spanish while Jet slept, but after a moment's debate, she refrained. Mother wasn't accustomed to speaking in English and Reina hadn't spoken in English in at least two weeks. Not since she'd last visited Paradise. Best be on top of her game, as the saying went, before Jet woke up again.

She had questions for him once he did. She would need to phrase those questions very carefully.

Reina pushed away from the door and turned, looking at it as though to read Jet's intentions in the smooth metal hatch. She was not sure to make of him, all truth told, mostly because he was nothing like she'd expected. He wore a ragged flight suit and he carried a gun, and his features were craggy and weathered above his muscular frame—but his smile had softened his sharp eyes, slight wrinkles deepening around them as he teased her.

She'd been expecting the predatory gaze of a Cygma operative, and instead he'd made her laugh.

Against all odds, Jet was _nice_. Far nicer than she'd expected to find the intruders when Mother blared an alarm and alerted her of ships in proximity to EDEN, Reina's heart turning a panicked somersault in her chest. She'd been in the middle of a bath at the time, had thrown on a robe and grabbed her shotgun with shaking hands, had run from the depths of EDEN with heart clutched tight between her grinding teeth. No ships had ever come this close, so close to the EDEN of this asteroid, to the hidden treasure sought by Cygma that she had guarded so fiercely and for so long.

Only one thought had crossed her mind as she left Mother to chase away the wolves: _They'd found her._ They'd found Mother, despite all she'd done to keep this place secret, to keep this place safe—and she would not let them in without a fight.

But then she'd found Jet, instead.

Friendly Jet, who had… what was the word, again? _Flirted_ with her? No one had flirted with her since Killian—

No. Best not think about him just now.

It had been against her better judgement, bringing Jet down here, but if she hadn't he'd have been torn apart by the sandstorm raging on the moon's dry surface—and she had been the one to injure him, after all, knocking him into unconsciousness with a self-conscious blast of salt-packed shotgun. She wasn't a monster who would leave an innocent man to die. Cygma had tried to kill him, and he'd tried to kill them right back. Unless his firefight with the Cygma operatives was some carefully constructed ruse to lure her off her guard, he was an outsider in all this. And what was it her father had always said? Enemy of my enemy is my friend?

She just hoped Jet proved that old adage true.

But why was he even here?

Reina breathed deeply. The air in the underground EDEN tasted of plastic and metal, the flavor of filtration. "Mother?" she said, cocking her head at the ceiling. "What is the probability that this man is a member of Cygma?"

"Almost seventy percent," Mother replied in her precise tones. "Would you like the exact decimal?"

Reina winced. "That will not be necessary, thank you."

Jet had been too woozy to interrogate, even if he'd been lucid enough to make a few off-kilter jokes and intuit they were underground with only a few clues to give the game away. Smart man, Reina decided, and not an entirely unpleasant conversation partner, though perhaps it was just the meds talking. Hopefully he'd remain as pleasant when he woke up again.

… speaking of which. What exactly did she plan to do with him, once he did as such and reentered the land of the living?

Putting her back to Jet's door, Reina surveyed the crescent-shaped room that was the central hub of EDEN itself. White walls and floor, clean lines and sweeping angles, plastic and metal and ceramic blending harmoniously with the myriad screens decorating the middle of the crescent's shorter wall… yes, her father's austere handiwork remained as pleasing to the eye as ever, even if she'd left a few potted cactuses and photographs scattered about for ambiance. There were only seven doors in this place, one to the surface and the rest to living quarters or maintenance access areas, none of them marked to reveal their contents. Still, Reina wondered if she should disguise this place somehow. One wall of the crescent was covered in screens, after all, readouts and charts and fluctuating graphs glittering with colorful displays depicting—no, no need for disguises. Jet would have no idea what any of those graphs meant, anyway. She was one of three people who could understand the material on those screens. One of three people who had ever been inside EDEN at all, in fact.

Well. Four, if you count Jet as of today.

… _mierda_ , what a mess.

She walked toward the blinking readouts and screens, toward the control panel covered in buttons and knobs sitting below them, to the chair tucked neatly below this blinking desk. The radio sat in its cradle over the chair's armrest right where Reina had left it. She took the large black handset and clipped it to her belt, turning on her heel toward the center door on the wall opposite the chair. Next to it, as with all the doors, sat a small keypad and scanner, into which she put the passcode and scanned the tip of her index finger. Mechanisms whirred and clicked behind the panel as it verified her identity and unlocked the hatch to the outside world.

Only Mother did not prefer this plan of action. "I wouldn't do that, _mi vida_ ," she said, voice adopting a tone of concern. "The storm—"

"I need to radio Moriah," Reina explained. "I will not leave the airlock, Mother, I promise."

"Ah." The AI's voice brightened, probably after running a series of lightning-fast calculations. "Best go quickly, then. Electromagnetic interference will make calling out impossible in a few minutes."

"Alert me if he wakes?" Reina asked, nodding her head toward Jet's door.

Mother did not have any eyebrows to speak of, but Reina swore they were raised when Mother said, "You mean you _don't_ want him running amok through EDEN?"

"That would be less than ideal, though I trust you would take care of such a thing in my absence." She paused, watching as the door slid upward into the ceiling to reveal the empty vault of a bare metal elevator car. A second set of doors lay across from Reina on the car's opposite wall. "Also. Good use of sarcasm."

Mother laughed—and at the sound Reina's heart gave a little jump, the way it did every time Mother laughed. The feeling of elation died a little, however, when Mother said: "Your recent updates to my humor metric appear to have been effective, even after a language alteration."

"It appears they have." Reina suppressed a bitter smile and stepped over the threshold. "Be right back."

The elevator ride to the surface did not take long; EDEN did not lie deep, even if it lay too deep for radio interference thanks to layers of concrete, aluminum, and steel. The elevator's smooth ride came to a halt with a gentle bump, and then the other set of elevator doors opened onto a small room made all of metal with a creaking grate for a floor: the airlock, though its name was only a formality. It smelled of dust and rust here, stuffy and hot, a far cry from the cool and filtered climate of EDEN below. A foot-high lip separated the room from the elevator; Reina climbed over this and crossed the room, heading for the enormous circular hatch on the other side. A small window no bigger than her head had been placed in the upper middle of the door, but when she pressed her face to it, she saw nothing but the darkness of the sandstorm—darkness through which only the barest flecks of light intermittently passed, shooting stars streaking through the vast expanse of empty space before fizzling from sight.

Reina assumed it was a fitting metaphor, anyway. She had never seen the stars—but she had seen the most beautiful pictures in books.

Reina lifted the radio to her mouth and thumbed the receiver. "Moriah, come in," she said, this time reverting to Spanish. She waited a beat, then thumbed the receiver and repeated her query. "Moriah. Moriah?"

A rush of static. "That you, Reina?"

Relief flooded her chest, warm and tingly. "Yes. Where are you?"

"En route to _Paradiso_." More static. Mother had been right; this was sure to be a short conversation. "You hear the ruckus topside?" Moriah asked.

"I did." Reina swallowed. Secure though they thought this channel was, she'd best speak carefully. "The ruckus was hard to miss," she said, hoping Moriah would catch her drift.

Moriah did catch it, muttering a foul curse. "We chased 'em off in short order, at least—although we have three leftovers in custody."

Reina swallowed again, then quietly admitted: "I have one, too."

She could almost picture Moriah's stunned eyes, lips pulling back off her teeth in shock. _"You_ have one?" she said.

"He isn't with Cygma, though," Reina said—she'd be getting interrogated later, herself, for taking an outsider to EDEN. She just hoped Moriah would understand. "Are yours?"

"Not by the look of 'em." Moriah almost laughed when she said it; Reina couldn't say why. "Think they're together?"

"I don't know. Mine's injured. Not talking yet."

"And mine say they're alone. Two separate groups?"

Reina shook her head, forgetting Moriah couldn't see. "Too coincidental. But I'll ask questions when mine wakes."

"And I'll interrogate mine in the meantime." Her voice dropped low, almost too low considering the static on the line. "Don't worry, Rei."

Reina snorted. "Who said I was worried?"

"You're _always_ worried these days." But before Reina could try to deny it, shore up her dignity with assurances, Moriah said, "Oh. You should know. One of the offworlders speaks Spanish."

"Oh?"

"A little girl."

Reina blinked, taken aback. "There's a child with them?"

"I told you they didn't look Cygma. Anyway." And there was that odd laughter in her voice again. "She thinks we're taking them to see _the King."_

And Reina understood the humor, now. She laughed, too, rubbing her forehead with her fingertips. "Her Spanish isn't so great, it seems," she mused.

"I'll say it isn't. But we're playing along," Moriah said. "Emilio will give them a good show—come to Para—side cell—for—"

Static suffused her voice like a cloud of insects, buzzing and insistent. Reina thumbed the receiver a few times, adjusting the channel and antenna to regain connection.

"Moriah? Moriah?" she said, but no answer came, and the cry of the woman's name turned into a curse, instead.

Short though the conversation had been, it hadn't been entirely unhelpful. There were more offworlders on the asteroid, then, in custody of Moriah in Paradise. One of them was a child—and even that _perezoso de mierda_ CEO of Cygma's wouldn't sink so low as to send a child to do his dirty work, would he? Reina didn't think so, low though her opinion of Reynolds most certainly was. Still, the only way to know for certain was to ask Jet when he woke up. He was her only option since she wouldn't be able to get any more information from Moriah until the storm abated.

That left her in a holding pattern.

A stalemate with time, if you will.

A waiting game—just like the one she'd been in for months now.

Waiting games, stalemates, holding patterns… the thing about them was that they relied on balance to stay intact. Neither side could give an inch or the other side would take a mile. Reina's equilibrium with Cygma had been holding for almost two years at this point. All it would take was a feather to tip the precariously balanced scales in either distinct direction.

Reina hadn't seen outsiders in a long time.

It was hard, therefore, not to wonder if their presence here—not to mention her act of kindness in saving Jet's life—would be that very feather.

She left the airlock and reentered the elevator, taking it back down to the hub where she could check on Jet. He hadn't moved while she'd been gone. He slept on his back, bio arm draped over his stomach while it rose and fell with sleep's deep breaths. She checked his pulse, noting its steady beat under her fingertips, and readjusted the sheet over his broad frame. When the man did not move she pulled a chair up to his mechanical left arm, noting that the wires she'd attached to its inner workings had gone dim. So the schematic scan had completed, then. Good. Gently she unclipped wire after wire, detaching them from metallic muscle fibers and popping skin plates back into place. She kept careful eye on Jet's face all the while, hoping the action didn't cause him any pain.

Jet only stirred once. His head fell to the side, brow knit and lips pursing in his sleep. Reina paused in her work, watching with breath bated. He had a heavy brow, this Jet, and a strong nose perhaps a touch crooked from past fights—and she did not feel bad assuming he'd been in fights before. The metal implant over his cheekbone, the severe cut running vertically over one eye spoke of a life of action, battles fought and mostly won, even if he'd come out of them scathed. The prosthetic under her fingertips certainly told a story of its own, too, not to mention she had had to peel his flight suit down to his waist to bandage the damage left by the shotgun. Scars from blades and guns alike crisscrossed his muscular chest and abdomen, a map of experience reflected in the calluses on his hard hands and the lines carved around his mouth. He was intimidating, this man, beard unkempt and wild, flight suit ragged and full of history, hands so large he could crush her if he chose.

Reina was no wilting flower, but she reminded herself to keep her shotgun close just the same—even if Jet's smile had softened his intimidating features, made him look almost handsome for a moment. Even if he'd called her pretty. Even if he'd made her laugh.

Reina reminded herself to keep her shotgun close just the same.

She finished her work on his arm and covered him with the sheet again, one final check of his vitals revealing nothing unusual. Reina left him in his room and went back to the main hub, where she sat in her chair at the control panel with a sigh. The screens before her whirled and danced, hundreds of readouts shuffling places and layering one atop the other in an unending loop. Geology readouts for this asteroid-turned-moon, atmospheric stability, fluctuations in electromagnetic frequency, maps of its system of underground aquifers—the moon's core, just below EDEN.

Her eyes lingered on that readout as it shuffled to the front of the throng.

Nothing about it looked unusual. The core held utterly stable, perfectly aligned, chemical and mineral composition exactly as intended. Her father would be proud of his handiwork—but to Reina, the sight of that perfect, stable core put a brick of heavy cold in the depths of her stomach, hard and weighty and oppressive

"Show me Paradise, Mother," she murmured, because she couldn't bear to look at the core any longer.

The readouts about the moon vanished, dissolving into dozens of flecks of light that swarmed back together to form a new image: a map of Paradise itself, thrumming with life and teeming with people—with _her_ people. Tiny dots swarmed the map, heat signatures of each individual resident of Paradise a small blip of red within the green lines of Paradise's borders. She watched them move and flock like ants through a hill, leaning her cheek on her hand with a small, warm smile.

"1,131" read the counter below the map, but she needn't have looked to know just how many dots called Paradise their home. That number had burned itself into her brain. 1,131 souls. 1,131 residents of Paradise—and she was responsible for them all.

Her smile faded.

The cold brick in her stomach returned.

"And above?" she whispered.

Mother seemed to hesitate before responding, or perhaps Reina's perception of time merely slowed in response to her dread. She could not say for certain which. Once again the image on the screen dissolved and reformed, this time providing a view of the moon itself. An oblate spheroid like the Earth, forced into that shape by her father's terraforming techniques, techniques performed by EDEN when her father first purchased the asteroid when she was just a child. She had seen this image a hundred thousand times, had seen her father trace the edges of the moon with his fingertip as he explained what he had achieved.

"I built and world for you and your mother, my darling," he had said, mustache tickling her cheek as she stood upon his knee. He took her pudgy child hand and placed it on the image of the moon, the one she had seen as many times as she had seen her face reflected in a mirror. "I built a world for you, and someday, it will be yours."

That day was today. Had been that day for many hundred todays, in fact.

But the image she saw on the screen was anything but familiar.

The oblate spheroid of the moon did not hang alone in space, surrounded only by debris and galactic detritus. A network of ships, dozens of them, dotted the atmosphere like circling buzzards, barring both entry and escape, bearing down to take what was rightfully hers and to leave her people with nothing.

To leave 1,131 people with nothing, to be exact.

She repeated the number in her head. Compared it to the number of ships waiting on the digital horizon. Crunched figures and facts until her head spun, catching on the same old stalemate she'd been caught in for so long. All that swam through the clamor was that number, over and over again, the number as clear as her sense of duty to what that number represented.

1,131 people lived here, on the asteroid called Marius CT-174—the place her father had named Paradise—and it was her duty to keep them safe.

She only hoped the scales, when they inevitably fell, would fall in her people's favor.

* * *

NOTES:

 _Y'know, I wasn't planning on including Reina's POV for a while, but I realized it was probably a good idea to introduce it sooner rather than later. I was going to cut straight to Jet waking up but he sleeps for a while and it makes more sense to kill a little time while he sleeps. Mimics the actual flow of events, I guess. And I'm explaining this because this is the first 3_ _rd_ _person story I've written in years and I'm trying to justify my last-minute decisions to myself. Thanks for listening. I think I'll skip back to the Bebop crew for chapter 6 (although, who should narrate?) and then head back to Jet for chapter 7. Or maybe I'll skip back to Jet. UGH. Yay, plans!_

 _I have a bad habit wanting to write in my notes "Did you notice details like X and Y that tie the chapters together?" And I want to do that now but I am refraining for the sake of suspense. There's just a lot of stuff she knows and takes for granted that she wouldn't re-explain to herself that you need to learn organically through Jet and the others, but I hope some stuff became clearer here. CURSE MY NEED TO OVER-EXPLAIN._

 _SUPER DUPER SPECIAL AWESOME THANKS to everybody who commented since last time! For real, though, you all sincerely made my day. This story is a lot of fun for me and it means the world that you're on board. Will be replying to reviews of chapter 4 here shortly and will reply to reviews of chapter 5 as they come in. Thanks so much, you ROCK: Luck Kazajian, ForeverinWonderland, smith pepper, deamachi-mochi, Kaiya Azure, Sweetfoxgirl13, read a rainbow, and Tamisin!_


	6. Chapter 6: Too Many Times Before

Warnings: None

* * *

Queen of this Backwater Moon

Chapter 06:

"Too Many Times Before"

* * *

The transport was a dump.

She muttered that a few times as the vehicle swayed and bumped and made its way across the desert, but the two idiots wearing what were _obviously_ homemade combat outfits didn't take the bait. Faye half hoped they would. Give her an excuse to work off some tension, y'know? But instead they just sat there staring blankly at the wall across from them (which, _boring_ ), occasionally muttering to each other in Spanish (which, _rude_ ), and Faye had no choice but to sit there and wait (which, _ugh_ ).

Faye _hated_ waiting.

Spike provided no entertainment, either, eyes closed as his head bounced bonelessly atop his neck with every jostle of the moving car (though Faye didn't believe for a second he was really asleep, though; Spike was too damn good at playing dead for her to fall for that trick—not again, damn him). Ed, meanwhile, had actually fallen asleep, limbs akimbo across the transport floor with head pillowed on Ein as she snored.

Ein was awake.

He rested his head on his paws, but his ears twitched back and forth with every new sound that echoed through the car, and his beady little eyes watched the two troopers from under half-closed lids.

Faye wasn't stupid enough to fall for the dog's act, either.

It took, oh, about an hour by Faye's reckoning for the transporter to slow to a creaking crawl, and soon after that it came to a halt. Doors in the cabin opened and shut; there followed the hissing release of a hydraulic lift as the cargo hatch at the back began to lower. Dust motes danced on dim light as the two commandos stood and grabbed Spike and Faye by the elbows, guiding them out of the transport and onto the desert sands (Spike yawned at the rough treatment while Faye snarled, seemingly unbothered by the less than dignified proceedings). Faye worried they might forget about Ed, but she heard Ein bark and the kid give a sleepy mumble before six small feet pattered after her on the transport's metal floor.

The minute she got outside, window kicked up and blew her hair over her face. Faye stopped in her tracks to look up and over her shoulder, violet eyes catching on the enormous wall of dust blotting out the horizon. They'd driven ahead of the storm, but they couldn't outrun it. It'd get there soon, to wherever it was the commandos had taken them—and with a grimace Faye realized the _Bebop_ , wherever _it_ was, was probably getting buried in a few tons of dirt right about then.

Jet would be _furious_.

Not that she had much time to consider where the hell Jet might be, much less his sappy emotions for his ship, nor if he'd managed to find somewhere to bolt out of the path of the storm, because just then something pressed tight against the small of her back.

She didn't need to look to know the feel of a gun against her spine. Had felt that too many times before not to know it for what it was.

"Keep moving," said one of the commandos, and he jabbed at her with the muzzle none too gently.

Faye grit her teeth. "Hey, watch it!" she snarled, but she heard the click of a bolt engaging and she simmered, tossing her hair with supreme disdain. "Fine. I get it. I know the drill. I'll move, OK?"

The gun withdrew.

Faye started walking again with a smirk.

Honestly? As far as hostage-taking went, this was all pretty cliché. Faye was less than impressed.

Although she'd agreed to keep walking, she didn't much enjoy the destination to which she was being directed, but it wasn't like she had a say as to where they were going. Not that anyone cared, but she'd much prefer a five star hotel over the ramshackle collection of buildings and houses before them. A tiny town, comprising no more than maybe twenty or thirty wooden structures all told, stood in a cluster in the middle of the desert. It looked like a town out of the old American west, like from a cowboy movie or whatever, and a few of those tall rock features she'd seen out in the desert ringed it like a battalion of looming giants. It was creepy, honestly, even if the huts were all well-kempt, and Faye wondered how simple wooden buildings like these could survive the desert storms—especially when a wind kicked up and sent a blast of sand across her bare legs, stinging and cutting even though the storm was still miles off.

… this couldn't possibly be Paradise, could it?

No. No way. No way in _hell_ could a place like this be paradise.

Beside her Spike started whistling a merry tune, utterly unperturbed at the chill that washed over them as they passed into the shadows of those stones (and completely uncaring that the persistent wind had knocked his hair wildly askew). Faye took comfort from Spike's song in spite of herself—because Spike was kind of like a dog, really. If he wasn't freaking out, then she didn't have a reason to freak out, either.

… right?

Filling her head with dreams of ritzy hotels, Faye tried not to let the doubt creep in.

The commandos, headed by that woman (Maggie? Morgana? No, Moriah), guided Faye and the others through town. All of the windows were boarded up, Faye noticed, probably to keep out the debris of the oncoming storm, and she saw no one as they passed a few structures and walked onto the porch of a squat, square two-story number that smelled like dust and sand. The porch creaked under their weights, and the door creaked when Moriah opened it, but the creaky-as-shit building didn't collapse as they went inside out of the wind.

When Faye saw what lay inside, she half hoped the building might decide to fall down, after all. The only thing inside the building was a long hallway lined with four barred cells, obviously a very rudimentary jail. On the other side of the room stood a door leading to god knew what (and Faye hoped it was a broom closet, not a torture chamber). Predictably (really, this really was so cliché) the commandos forced Faye and her companions into the nearest cell through a narrow wooden door. A cot and an exposed toilet—that's all they got by way of amenities. Faye had seen worse, but she sure as hell deserved better, and as the door clanged shut behind her she spun on her heel to rip her captors a verbal new one.

Moriah was saying something in Spanish to one of the guards, who grinned at her before walking past Faye toward the door-that-hopefully-didn't-hide-a-torture-chamber. Faye didn't pay him any attention, walking up to the bars and leering at Moriah through them, hands wrapping firm around cold steel as she geared up for a good ol' fashioned bitch-session.

"So." Moriah beat Faye to the punch, speaking with a small, closed-off smile. "Feel like telling me what you're doing here?"

"Sorry, lady," Spike said (and Faye shot him a burning glare over her shoulder for preemptively interrupting her). He flopped onto the cot and draped his hand over his forehead. "My head's all woozy on an empty stomach. Got anything to eat around here?"

"There's food if you talk," Moriah said.

"I'll talk if there's food," Spike countered.

"Hmmph," said Moriah—and as Faye opened her mouth to finally begin her diatribe, Moriah turned on her heel and stalked off toward the mystery door.

Faye growled, vibrating with the tension no one was letting her work off. Seriously, what did a girl have to do to get a chance to yell around here? As Faye stewed on the unfairness of it all, Ed lay down in the corner with the dog, kicking her feet up over her head and walking her toes up the wall until she couldn't reach any higher (at which point she collapsed with a giggle). Spike settled himself more comfortably onto the cot, but Faye? No, she was _not_ going to take this lying down, figuratively or literally or whatever other words ran in the same vein; fuck if Faye knew. Her heels clicked against the wooden floor as she paced back and forth, back and forth, fists clenching and unclenching at her sides.

But calm down, Faye, she told herself. She'd been in worse situations than this before, and she'd gotten herself out of them with less at her disposal. It was time to strategize, take stock of available assets and put them to good use. So, let's see… Jet was still out there (though Faye had no idea where he might've gone). Their ship was still out there (though in what condition she couldn't say). They weren't sure who these Spanish-speaking guerrillas were and there were a hundred hostile ships waiting just past the edge of the atmosphere and they had no weapons and no transportation and was Faye hearing things or had a low moan of wind just shaken the walls of the house, the rattle and hiss of flying sand skittering over the exterior walls like the fingernails of a gaggle of invading zombies? Had the storm gotten here already?

… OK. So maybe Faye _hadn't_ gotten out a worse situation with less before.

The realization made her teeth absolutely _grind_ , so Faye did the only thing she could think to do and rounded on Spike with a look that could melt stone with its raw acidity. He quirked an eyebrow at her but she just snarled, "They leave us in here in this dilapidated hut, and _you're taking a nap?"_

Spike's eyes slid from her to the ceiling and back to Faye again. "Um?" he said. "Yes?"

Faye bared her teeth. Her hand lashed toward the wall, the ceiling, the storm raging on the other side of both flimsy wooden barriers. "That wind'll rip this shack to shreds! We're sitting ducks— _unless_ we can bust out." She eyed the walls with new interest, wondering if she could kick a hole through one. "Wood looks weak enough."

Ed (who touched the floor with nothing but her head, toes skimming the wall) did a backward roll and came up with legs splayed, hands resting on the ground between her thighs. "Not wood, Faye-Faye!" she said. "Not wood!"

Spike grinned at the kid, unlit cigarette bobbing between his lips. "So you saw it too, huh?"

"Hee hee—yup!" Ed said, and she did a return roll and started walking her toes back up the wall.

Faye put her hands on her hips, looking between the kid and the asshole with a glare. "What the hell are you two babbling about?"

"Oh. Nothing." Spike put his hands behind his head and rested an ankle on his other knee, giving Faye a smile that made her blood boil. "So, we bust out, huh? And go where?"

"I don't know. I haven't gotten that far." She threw her hands alof after a moment of contemplation, grin triumphant. "We steal a ship, find Jet, and get the hell off this armpit of a moon. There. How's that for a plan?"

Spike shut his eyes. "Shoddy," he said.

"Yeah, well— _you're_ shoddy," Faye sputtered. "It's not like you have a better idea, genius!"

Spike smirked, but he did not open his eyes. "As a matter of fact, I do."

Faye waited. Crossed her arms. Tapped her foot. When Spike did not elaborate, she very irritably prompted: "And your amazing plan would _be_ …?"

Spike cracked one eye, finally. "Sit tight and wait."

"Say _what?!_ "

"Hey, keep it down, would ya? I'm trying to take a nap, here." He sank deeper onto the cot with a grumble. "Take a look at the door."

"Huh?"

"Bottom left. Near the corner."

Reluctantly Faye turned her back on Spike and approached the door. She thought she maybe could feel his eyes on her as she knelt and stared at the wooden panel, but she ignored the feeling and focused on the bottom left corner like he asked. For a minute Faye thought maybe Spike was pulling her leg, because all she could see was wood—but then she shifted in her crouch and something glimmered. "What the—?" Faye said, leaning in close.

Down in the corner, just like Spike had said, a sliver of wood had been peeled off the door. Through the crack gleamed stark, pearlescent white; Faye dropped down to her hands and knees to peer at it. The white bore a faint grey hexagonal pattern, like a beehive made of bone or something. Faye had never seen anything like it before, that was for sure.

"Saw it when we came in," Spike drawled. "Chip away and I'll bet this whole place is made outta the same stuff."

She ran her finger along the gap in the wood; the material felt cool and smooth to the touch. "What is it?"

"Beats me. But I'm willing to bet it's a lot stronger than wood."

Ed rolled over, then, head tucked between her knees. "Not wood, Faye-Faye! Spike-person is right!" She crouched next to Faye and touched the gap, too, and then she gave her finger a long lick. "Composite of carbon fiber and ceramic and plasticine byproducts, judging by its compositional structure and delicate aroma," (here she rolled her Rs with gusto) "but that is just a very educated guess. Tomato could tell Ed exactly what it is." She sagged a bit, lip jutting out. "Ed misses Tomato."

"Faye misses not being stuck in a cell made of weird byproducts," Faye said, and she shot to her feet with a frustrated growl. "Dammit! I'm sick and tired of just waiting around!" She lobbed a kick at the door over the top of Ed's head; the girl scampered off with a delighted shriek as Faye kicked the door again, but the panel didn't pudge an inch (yeah, whatever lay under that wood was _definitely_ strong). Faye threw herself at the bars and yodeled, "Moriah! Hey, hey, Moriah! You get back here! I've got a bone to pick with you!"

Faye was mostly yelling to alleviate stress, as was her habit—but for once her stress relief bore practical fruit. The door at the end of the hall opened, and into the room strode Moriah. She'd ditched her coat, skullcap, and body armor, however, wearing a simple outfit of breeches, boots, and a tailored shirt. Faye felt momentarily intimidated by the steely look behind Moriah's dark gaze, but she pasted on a lazy smirk and lounged against the bars like a caged tiger. Gotta look like she didn't have a care in the world, Faye thought. She had an image to maintain.

"Finally," Faye said. "So where's this king guy you were babbling about? I've always wanted to meet royalty, y'know."

Moriah's steely look softened into one of… well, annoyance, but maybe Faye was seeing things. "He's here," Moriah said. And very tiredly, almost like she would rather be doing literally anything else but do what she was about to do, Moriah gestured at the door she had just exited and deadpanned, "I present to you King Emilio of Marius CT-174, duke of Paradise, commander of armies—uh. Esquire."

Before Faye could unpack that particular oddity, someone else paraded through the door.

Someone else far more odd than Moriah and her reluctant declarations, which meant this day had only gotten weirder. Less cliche, though, which was a plus.

He was olive skinned and tall, with broad shoulders and a portly stomach, beard greying and long and in perfect complement to his long, greying hair. He would have looked perfectly normal had a red velvet cape edged in white faux fur not trailed behind him as he walked, and had he not been wearing a golden crown on his head that was most definitely made out of plastic. This man, King Emilio, swept in with arms outstretched as if to greet a roaring crowd, and behind him trailed the two commandos from before—his bodyguards, Faye would've guessed had Emilio been any sort of convincing version of a king, which he was _not_. Even Moriah didn't look impressed, standing off to the side and pinching the bridge of her nose as Emilio came to a flourishing halt before Faye's cell.

Faye recognized Moriah's look as impatient, annoyed, and longsuffering. Faye had worn it too many times before, mostly around Spike, not to recognize it.

Speaking of whom. Spike cracked an eye as Emilio dipped a fancy bow, but he didn't bother to sit up. Ed, meanwhile, stared at Emilio with her mouth open, eyes wide and swimming with awe as they trained on the "king's" plastic (but very shiny) crown. Emilio looked at each of the captives in turn before dramatically swirling his cape and striking a pose, hands on hips, feet spread and head held high.

"Well, well, well. It seems we have visitors," he said, English bearing an unmistakable Spanish accent. "What brings you to my humble kingdom, travelers from afar?"

Ed's eyes grew wider, still trained on the crown. "So _beautiful_."

Faye snorted. "Is this a joke?"

Emilio blinked, chest deflating. "Excuse me?"

"So _radiant_ ," Ed sighed.

"You heard me," said Faye. "Is this a joke?" She pointed at the crown, at the cape, at the two commandos standing behind him. "That's plastic, the cape came from a cheap costume shop, and those guards of yours can't stop laughing!"

And this was true. They'd been growing redder and redder, cheeks puffing with suppressed mirth, and at her words the pair of them _lost it_ , cracking up and leaning on one another for support. Emilio spun and glared at them (at which point they stifled their laughter and straightened up, though their chests still shook with humor). Emilio turned back around quite red-faced indeed.

"Um," he said, and he threw out his chest again. "I mean, how dare you speak to a king that way?"

He had thrown out his chest just enough to get within grabbing range, which is exactly what Faye did. She grabbed the front of his cape and dragged King Emilio against the bars, pulling his face as far as it could go between two of the metal pylons. Emilio yelled something in Spanish, lips pressed forward between the bars like he was imitating a fish, but he shut up fast when Faye came nose to nose and snarled at him.

"Listen here, buddy," she said, tangling her other hand deep into his beard. "I don't know what kind of stunt you're trying to pull, but I'm not here for it, you hear me? I want out of this cell and off this planet in your finest cruiser and— _hey!_ "

Faye had expected the two guards, or maybe Moriah, to intervene. She did not expect to feel a pair of small hands on her shoulders, nor a foot in the middle of her back, and she certainly didn't expect to stumble forward and smush her face against the bars as Edward put a knee on Faye's shoulder and snatched Emilio's crown right off his head. The kid flipped backward off of Faye with a delighted shriek and a clean gymnastics landing, and then with a flourish she deposited the crown primly onto her red hair.

"Edward is the king now, mortals!" she crowed, spinning in place on her heel—and then she grinned, eyes bugging and devious, and pointed a finger at the ground at her feet. "Bow down to your ruler and repent, or face my mighty wrath!"

Emilio took advantage of this very distracting display and wrenched himself free, leaving behind the cape and a few of the hairs of his beard in Faye's somewhat slackened hands. "These people are crazy!" he said, rounding on Moriah as Faye pulled the cape into the cell and wearily handed it over to Ed, who was dancing in place and doing grabby-hands. "Moriah, why didn't you warn me?"

Moriah had leaned against the cell door across from Faye's, arms crossed as she looked at Emilio with bored disdain. She said, "I told you this was a dumb idea, _idiota_ , but no. You had to play the part of a fool."

"The part of a _king._ " He glared at Ed. "If she'd just give me back my royal livery."

Ed stuck out her tongue and grabbed the cape (now hung loosely around her neck) in both hands, fanning it behind her like wings. _"My_ livery now, you fool in a man's shoes!"

Ein, sitting at Ed's feet, barked once. Spike sat up on the cot at last and grinned.

"Heh! This is actually pretty fun," he said. "Gimme some food and I'll have dinner and a show."

But Faye was in no mood for cracking jokes. "You idiot!" she spat. She threw herself at the bars again, snatching at Emilio, though this time he danced back and out of reach with a triumphant laugh. "I knew you were no king! Now get back over here so I can—"

But Moriah was tired of the shenanigans before her, it seemed. She pushed away from the door and stepped in front of Emilio, waving him off as if he were no more than an annoying fly. "Now listen here, all three of you. I know—"

Ein barked twice.

Moriah paused. Studied the dog. Sighed. "Fine. All four of you." She straightened her back and glared down her long nose, and Faye felt a ripple of unwelcome unease hitch its way up her throat. "I know you're not tourists like you claim. And I know you came here with another friend."

Faye couldn't help but tense, sucking in a sharp breath she regretted at once. Behind her, she heard Spike shift on the cot. Even though neither of them said a word (and even though Ed had taken up marching back and forth across the cell, chanting a song about kings and rings and wonderful golden things), Moriah's eyes still narrowed with knowing victory.

So they knew about Jet, huh? There went Faye's one hope of outside rescue.

"Yes," Moriah continued. "I know all about your friend. We have him detained just like you. And if you don't talk, he will."

But at that claim, Faye snorted.

"Nah," Spike said. Faye looked over her shoulder just as he flopped back down onto the cot, unperturbed. "He won't."

"Yeah," Faye agreed. "Fat chance of that." Jet was as stubborn as she was, and he wouldn't give up any information without a fight.

But Moriah didn't know about Jet's ISSP background, nor about his stubborn streak. She merely shrugged. "We have our ways. Tell me why you're here and perhaps we'll see fit to let you go without incident."

Faye glanced back. "Spike?"

Eyes closed, recling on the cot, he held up both hands. "Don't look at me."

"We're cowboys!" Ed declared.

Spike sat up. "Ed!" he said, in perfect unison with Faye.

Moriah looked sharply at Ed. "Cowboys?"

"That's right!" The crown slipped down over Ed's eyes as she swirled and flapped her cape. "We're cowboys and we're here tracking a juicy bountyhead!"

"Ed, shut up!" Faye whisper-screamed.

"A bountyhead?" said Moriah.

"That's right!" Ed grabbed the crown and put it back on her head with a devilish grin. "And heavy is the head that wears the crown!"

"Ed, seriously, be quiet!" Spike said.

But it was too late. "The head who wears," Moriah said, but she cut herself off and went silent. Her expression tightened; she took a step forward, clenching the bars of the cell in both fists, staring at Ed with eyes like smoldering coals. "Who is this bounty on?" When Ed didn't answer, just did a backward roll and wrapped herself up in her cape, Moriah spat a Spanish curse under her breath and turned her burning gaze to Faye. "Tell me! Who is this bounty on?"

Faye said nothing. She couldn't say anything. She looked at Moriah and gaped, struck by the other woman's bleak expression.

That look.

Faye knew that look.

But why did Moriah look so—?

Ed stuck her head out of her cape, gasped, and pulled it back down again like a frightened turtle. "Eek! Scary lady is scary!"

Moriah ignored her. "The bountyhead. Tell me their name. _Now._ "

Spike swung his legs over the edge of the cot with a laugh. "I don't think so, lady. You scratch our back, we scratch yours. Tell me where my friend—"

"I'll tell you the name," said Faye.

Spike did a double-take. "Faye?! What the hell are you—?"

"Look at her, Spike," Faye said, voice flat and calm. "She's _terrified_."

And indeed Moriah was.

At first Faye had mistaken the flame in Moriah's eyes for anger. They burned so hot and so bright, her teeth showing white and gleaming behind her curled lips, that anyone could mistake the look for one of white-hot rage. But there was a desperation present in Moriah, too, evident in her stranglehold on the cell bars, the subtle tremor in her arms from a grip so tight, Faye wondered if Moriah might think she'd fly away if she loosened her fingers even a single bit. Faye knew that grip, those eyes, that shake of the knee and the vein pulsing in Moriah's throat—and she knew that was a look of terror, not one of anger at all.

"We're after a man named Killian Marco," Faye said before Spike could intervene. "Heard of him?"

The minute the name left her mouth, Moriah's grip on the bars sagged. She released them, fingers stiff and curled like claws; these she ran through her braided hair, turning her back on Faye to compose herself. When she turned around again, the look of terror in her eyes had vanished, replaced instead by one of relieved calm.

So Faye had been right. Something they'd said had scared tough-as-nails Moriah spitless.

Interesting. Interesting, and a reminder of the past Faye really didn't need.

"Yes," Moriah said, releasing a shaking breath. "I know him. But I'm afraid he's not here."

Spike loosed a sound of wordless frustration; Faye heard his feet hit the floor only twice before his hand closed around her elbow. "Faye, what are you doing?" he said into her ear.

"She was terrified, and now she's relieved." Faye saw no need to explain herself further than that; let Spike stew on it. See if she cared. She wrenched her arm from his grip and shot Moriah an acidic smile. "I think you owe us at least a meal now, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes. I would say so." Moriah looked her up and down. "Faye, was it?"

Faye inspected her fingernails. "Mm-hmm."

"Well, then. Thank you, Faye." And it looked like Moriah meant it, too, expression utterly sincere. The moment didn't last, however; Moriah pivoted like a marching soldier and headed for the door, not looking back even once. "Men, with me, now."

They obeyed her, and soon the crew of the Bebop found themselves alone.

Not alone enough for Faye's liking, of course. As soon as the door shut behind the commandos, Spike rounded on her with a resigned grimace. "Why'd you give it away like that, Faye?"

She shrugged. "Woman's intuition."

"That doesn't make any sense."

He glared at her with his mismatched eyes as if he could force an explanation from her with a look alone—but even though she still got a tiny little thrill every time those eyes looked her way (Spike's not dead; Spike's not dead; _Spike's not dead!)_ , Faye's heart hardened as he tried to stare her down.

Of course Spike didn't get it.

He _should_ get it. But he didn't.

And all she found she wanted to do, then, was punch that resurrected face right on the side of its chiseled jaw.

"Leave it, Spike," Faye said. "You wouldn't understand."

And with that, she walked to the cot and flopped onto its hard canvas bedding with a curse. Yeah, a five-star mattress this was not.

"Hey. That's _my_ cot," Spike said, accusing.

"Not anymore," Faye said, and she rolled over to face the wall.

Spike grumbled a few more things at her and about her, but she very carefully did not listen—not until he muttered, "Fine. What's done is done." A pause. "You could at least tell me _why._ "

Faye curled into a ball.

She didn't speak.

But she remembered Moriah's face and the utter desperation in it, that look of terror-suffused worry that had set her eyes so uncomfortably ablaze. She remembered that look with ease. She remembered with ease the face of a woman terrified at the unknown fate of a person she cared deeply for, because that was a look with which Faye was intimately familiar.

Faye had seen that look too many times in the mirror not to recognize it on another woman—but Faye would be damned if she ever admitted as much to Spike.

* * *

NOTES:

 _Truth be told, I was intimidated to touch Faye's POV. Such a delicate mix of hard and soft, y'know? She's the member of the crew I feel the least confident writing (barring Ein, oddly), and I think that lack of confidence delayed the chapter a little—but putting off her POV any further would only stress me out more. Gotta rip that band aid off and such._

 _More Jet, next chapter._

 _Unending gratitude to those who reviewed because you're all amazing and awesome and I love you. You make my day with your comments and I couldn't do this without your support: Akanue, Orihime-san, read a rainbow, Sweetfoxgirl13, Tamisin, Luck Kazajian, and a guest who might or might not be deamachi-mochi from Tumblr._


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